7 tips to get the most out of Google Drive

The Google Power rumours had been floating round for a lot of years. Actually, when Google introduced the service via a blog post in April this year, they titled it as ‘ Introducing Google Drive… yes, really. ‘ I don’t think anyone didn’t want the rumours to come true. Yet another cloud backup service, sure, but hey, it’s from Google!

Here are some ways to get the most out of this useful Google product. Of course, these aren’t the only ones and that’s why we have the comments section. Do chime in there with other Google Drive tips you know about after going through the following ones.

1. Useful keyboard shortcutsIf you’ve used keyboard shortcuts in Gmail and Google Reader, then this should be easy. Just like in those two services, here too you can pull up the list of keyboard shortcuts by hitting Shift + ? on your keyboard. You need to do it when you are on the main Google Drive homepage that shows all your files.

2. Use it to attach larger files to emailsGoogle Drive has made sending files and photos as email attachments sexy again. You can attach up to 10 GB of files through your Drive account to your emails in Gmail. The recipients can easily view them online. And if the files aren’t shared, Google Drive will prompt you to do that before the email is sent.

3. Use Save to Google Drive extensionGoogle recently launched this Chrome extension that lets you save any image or web page on Chrome to your Google Drive via the right-click menu. A really easy way to save web content directly to Google Drive if you use Chrome.

4. File versionsDid you know that Google Drive keeps 30 days worth of file revisions (up to 100 revisions) that you could access from File -> See revision history on each document that has been changed? You may use it to get back to a previous version of a file. You may also delete the versions you don’t need to get more space.

5. Download files in bulk with Google TakeoutIt’s easy to export data in bulk from Google Drive. Of course there are ways to do it from Google Drive itself, but there’s also Google Takeout that you could use to download a complete archive of all your data in Google Drive.

6. Make it your default documents folderYou might want to make Google Drive as the default documents folder considering the features it offers. In Windows, you may do that by right-clicking Documents, going to Properties, then Include a folder, choose Google Drive folder and finally select it and click Set save location.

7. Restore from binAccidentally deleted a file from Google Drive on the desktop? No worries, log in to its online version, click More on the left menu, click Trash and there’s your file! All you need to do now is right-click and restore.

Abhijeet Mukherjee (@abhijeetmk) is the founding editor of Guiding Tech, a tech how-to weblog. He loves discovering hacks that make him extra productive in his on a regular basis work.